Friday, May 11, 2012

Equal opportunity opportunists

"If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago and a racist today."

Martin Luther King, a Republican who believed in equality under the law, would today be labeled a racist for his I Have a Dream speech:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

Try judging an applicant/employee/student today by the content of their character rather than by the color of their skin and you're likely to end up in federal court or in front of the EEOC.

Liberal Democrats have so distorted our discourse that today a commitment to a merit-based color-blind society is labeled "racist", and a commitment to racial profiling is called an "affirmative defense" in court. If you abhor racism, you're a racist. If you practice explicit racism, you're not a racist. Go figure.

Democrats, as you might imagine, have always been on the racist side. To Democrat pols, "color blind" has always meant "lost votes". Democrats championed slavery, civil war (to protect slavery), the KKK, Jim Crow, segregation, race-huckstering (here and here) and affirmative action with equal fervor and without blinking an eye. To paraphrase Tom Joad, wherever there's race hate, the Democrat party will be there.

It is an Orwellian state of affairs when the truth is held to be the opposite of the reality. 'Ignorance is strength' 'Freedom is slavery' and 'War is peace' were all party slogans of INGSOC. Seems they hold true in NAMSOC too.

Martin Luther King was certainly a leftist in many regards, but some of his comments would certainly get his membership card revoked by today's "liberals."

He did not shy away from making the moral argument against segregation and the morals he spoke of were Biblically based. He didn't hide that.

Please read Letter from a Birmingham Jail. It's quite inspiring.

"How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law."

"Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and sinful."

"Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town."

@ Trish, if a Democrat said that today, he'd be spared only if it was completely disingenuous blather that everyone understood he didn't really mean. (See: Obama, Barack and Pelosi, Nancy.) If a Republican said such a thing, it would be scary "God talk" that would instantly draw comparisons to the Taliban.

I'm pretty sure MLK switched to the Democratic side. I think it was because of then-Senator JFK helped get him bailed out of jail at one point. The Kennedy Justice Department later spied on him and tried to trip him up at every turn because it considered him dangerous. It was the latest installment of Democratic racism. I wonder if MLK regretted joining the party of Jim Crow?

How conveniently conservatives always seem to forget that when Johnson sighed the Voting Rights Act he said “We have lost the South for a generation” and that Richard Nixon then implemented the Southern Strategy to secure the votes of the disillusioned racist Southern Democrats for the Republicans. The Red/Blue map has hardly changed at all since racist Southerners threw in with the Republican Party.

If I’m wrong and you’re right, then please explain why all the old school hard-core white supremacist types seem go on and on about this being a Christian nation, and show an overwhelming preference for Tea party politicians over the likes of Nancy Pelosi.

"The Red/Blue map has hardly changed at all since racist Southerners threw in with the Republican Party."

You assume that this is because the South remained racist and the Republicans flip-flopped from nice guys to bigots. Nope, we're still against all of the discriminatory practices we used to be against, and we're against the latest one too--AA. By the way, it was Nixon who introduced AA into federal hiring. And Nixon should be ashamed of it.

Did it ever occur to you that Southerners bolted from the Democratic Party because of something else? For example, because they became the party that applauded itself for its patriotism for abandoning South Vietnam, after getting us INTO Vietnam? Or because they became the anti-God party? Is it always racial with Southerners?

In any case, the solid South has NOT been solidly red since Nixon. Obama carried Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia.

Also, please refer to the presidential elections of 1992, and 1996. The South was divided between D and R during these elections. In 1976, post-Southern Strategy, Carter the Democrat TROUNCED Ford in the South. The South was solid again, but solidly in favor of Jimmy.

By my count we've had nine presidential elections since Nixon's time, and three of them were not decisive victories for Republicans in the South.

"If I’m wrong and you’re right, then please explain why all the old school hard-core white supremacist types seem go on and on about this being a Christian nation, and show an overwhelming preference for Tea party politicians over the likes of Nancy Pelosi."

Now you're acting like the Heartland Institute. If you believe in global warming, you're kind of like the unabomber. Let me ask you--do you believe in global warming? Are you the unabomber? No. Okay.

Skinheads are not religious. A few of them belong to this racist Church of the Creator that is every bit as much of a perversion of Christianity as churches that fly the rainbow flag out front. But most are just thugs, recruited in prison.

Could you give me an example of a skinhead going on and on about how this is a Christian nation? It wouldn't mean much but I doubt you can find one.

In any case. plenty of people have said such things, including the Founding Fathers.

Here's John Adams.

"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other."

When Barrack Obama said that we aren't a Christian nation, it was so controversial because all previous presidents, R and D alike, had acknowledged that we are. I guess that they were all skinheads.

I know of no skinheads who are supporting the tea party, and they probably don't like Nancy Pelosi because she sucks. Sufficient explanation?

If you want to know who the (white) racist types are supporting, look no further than Ron Paul.

I only say this because you seem bewildered by American politics. You remind me of some of the Germans I knew when I was stationed there years ago. They sometimes read about politics on our side of the ocean, but they didn't really understand from their vantage what it was all about. It wasn't entirely their fault--the reporters who were supplying their information didn't really "get it" either. There was so much you had to explain to them, assuming they wanted to listen, which wasn't always the case.

They remind me a bit of you. Are you perhaps a citizen of another nation? It's okay if you are.

I am Canadian. I take exception to us being used as your example. We are not an ignorant people, nor are we in some distant continent like Germany. We are VERY well travelled and our literacy rates are among the highest in the world. Further, we as your neighbours, have a Christian constitution/Monarch, a conservative government, and get all the American TV and radio stations on our Sat feeds. Many of us are uninterested (we have our own problems and politicians), but those who are - like myself who have connections to the USA- have no problem keeping up with the US political game.

We are the other America. BNA, the Dominion, The Confederation of Canada. The Loyalists. We are the North that NEVER fell despite repeated attack. We are nothing like the post Christian republics of Europe and have access to as much of the US info we want. We speak English by vast majority. A line from our anthem that is rather telling: 'God keep our land, Glorious and Free'

I don't know where KW is from originally, but he served in the US Navy. In my opinion that makes him as American as anyone on here.

Fair enough, Joey. My issue was not with being compared to Germans, but with the most ignorant Americans. The Germans I know and have served with are bright multilingual people. It is just we are NEXT DOOR. The Germans are not as connected any longer.And just for the record, it is KW that served with the US Navy. I am with the Royal Canadian Armed Forces, Branch Division. I was with infantry (Rifles - Recon) my active/field years. I have served along side US troops and have even had the honour of commanding a small number of them in field (joint operations in the tier) , for short period. My interest in US politics is twofold. Having spent years living in the States, and having relatives who are American, I feel a vested interest - I feel kinship to you you folk. But also as a neighbour to a Super-Power. But, no worries. We certainly have our own brand of idiot up this way - but their fault is being ignorant of not only US politics, but their OWN. In fact they are almost identical in their outlook if much smaller in numbers (as is our population).

"The Christian idea of the world is that it originated in a very complicated process of evolution but that it nevertheless still comes in its depths from the Logos. It thus bears reason in itself."

Benedict XVI

"The universe is not the product of darkness and unreason; it comes from intelligence, freedom, and from the beauty that is identical with love"

Benedict XVI

"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God."

Benedict XVI

"Atheism is a disease of the soul before it becomes an error of understanding."

Plato

"Atheism is so senseless and odious to mankind that it never had many professors"

Isaac Newton

"I'm not an atheist, and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God."Albert Einstein

"Egnorance: The Egotistical Combination of Ignorance and Arrogance" Burt Humburg

"Egnor [is] an interesting example of the religious pathology that's going to be afflicting us for probably the next century..." P.Z. Myers

"...so far Dr.Egnor seems not to grasp the folly of his situation." Steven Novella

"Michael Egnor is giving every sign of continuing the shenanigans that has already made him infamous in skeptical circles." Steven Novella

"Dr. Egnor has his own blog now. Hilarity ensues..."Orac

"Egnor probably always was an arrogant asshole, also when he was an athiest. Then he had a midlife crisis, found religion and he became an even bigger asshole."

Troy

"...it is simply impossible for me to continue to believe that the "Michael Egnor" articles are being written by a real person who really believes what he (or she) writes." Mike Dunford

"Michael Egnor comes back for another helping of whup ass..." P.Z. Myers

"Dr. Egnor's deviously clever plan to destroy Darwinism once and for all..." Orac

"Dr. Egnor regularly laid down flaming swaths of stupid ..." Orac

"...Dr. Egnor reaches a new low..." Mark C. Chu-Carroll

"Egnor's machine is uninhabited by any ghost..." P.Z. MyersSuddenly [Egnor] knows law better than lawyers, he knows biology better than biologists, he pretends to know everything better than people who have actually studied whatever it is that Egnor feels threatens his crazy religion. Troy

"This is not an excuse for Dr. Egnor's ignorance – he threw his hat into the ring, he deserves what he gets. He should have had the proper humility to stay out..."Steven Novella

"...that paragon of arrogant ignorance, Dr. Michael Egnor, is back at it again..." Mark C. Chu-Carroll

"...Michael Egnor just can't get enough of making himself look like an idiot..." Mark C. Chu-Carroll

"Dr. Michael Egnor: Neurosurgeon, Stony Brook Faculty, and all around Dishonest Twit...based on the level of intellectual integrity that he just demonstrated, he's not someone I would trust to train a dog, much less a doctor" Mike Dunford

"Two Things that Don't Go Together: Michael Egnor and Intellectual Integrity...Someone once pointed out that when a dog pisses on a fire hydrant, it's not committing an act of vandalism. It's just being a dog..." Mike Dunford